Recently I had a client that had a need that simply couldn’t be fulfilled with proprietary software. Well, that’s not exactly true. There were plenty of proprietary titles that could do what she needed done, but none that were at her budget. So I did what any advocate of open source software would do - I introduced her to the world of FOSS. She was amazed that so much software existed that was not only quality, but very cost effective.
That little interaction reminded me that the biggest hurdle open source software faced was not an incompatibility, or lack of solid code - but the lack of recognition. The majority of Windows users out there believe if you want good software you have to pay for it. So I decided to highlight the open source projects out there that run on Windows so you could, in turn, help spread the word by using and promoting these tools to your fellow Windows users.
Now…on to the software.
#1 LibreOffice: This one is, with the exception of the “new name”, obvious. If you are looking for the single best replacement for MS Office, look no further than LibreOffice. Yes, it is a fork of OpenOffice, but it forked at version 3.x so it benefited from an already solid code base. This piece of software is a must-have for open source advocates. And don’t worry, although it may claim to be in “beta”, many users (including myself) are using it in production environments.
#2 Scribus: If you are looking for desktop publishing for creating marketing materials, manuals, books, fliers, etc. - look no further than Scribus. Scribus can do nearly everything its proprietary counterparts can do (such as PageMaker and QuarkXPress) only it does it with a more user-friendly interface and doesn’t require nearly the resources the competition begs for.
#3 The GIMP: Need a raster editor? The GIMP is as powerful as Photoshop and costs roughly $700.00 dollars less. And if you’re unhappy with The GIMP’s current interface, hold off until around March when the new single-windowed interface will arrive. Take a look at how the new UI is evolving at the Gimp Brainstorm.
#4 Inkscape: Inkscape is to vector graphics what The GIMP is to raster graphics. Of course anyone that has worked with vector graphics knows they are not nearly as easy to work with as raster graphics, but Inkscape goes a long way to making that process as easy as it can be.
Read more: TechRepublic
That little interaction reminded me that the biggest hurdle open source software faced was not an incompatibility, or lack of solid code - but the lack of recognition. The majority of Windows users out there believe if you want good software you have to pay for it. So I decided to highlight the open source projects out there that run on Windows so you could, in turn, help spread the word by using and promoting these tools to your fellow Windows users.
Now…on to the software.
#1 LibreOffice: This one is, with the exception of the “new name”, obvious. If you are looking for the single best replacement for MS Office, look no further than LibreOffice. Yes, it is a fork of OpenOffice, but it forked at version 3.x so it benefited from an already solid code base. This piece of software is a must-have for open source advocates. And don’t worry, although it may claim to be in “beta”, many users (including myself) are using it in production environments.
#2 Scribus: If you are looking for desktop publishing for creating marketing materials, manuals, books, fliers, etc. - look no further than Scribus. Scribus can do nearly everything its proprietary counterparts can do (such as PageMaker and QuarkXPress) only it does it with a more user-friendly interface and doesn’t require nearly the resources the competition begs for.
#3 The GIMP: Need a raster editor? The GIMP is as powerful as Photoshop and costs roughly $700.00 dollars less. And if you’re unhappy with The GIMP’s current interface, hold off until around March when the new single-windowed interface will arrive. Take a look at how the new UI is evolving at the Gimp Brainstorm.
#4 Inkscape: Inkscape is to vector graphics what The GIMP is to raster graphics. Of course anyone that has worked with vector graphics knows they are not nearly as easy to work with as raster graphics, but Inkscape goes a long way to making that process as easy as it can be.
Read more: TechRepublic